Bovis Homes completes joint venture with social housing provider Riverside

3rd Apr 2019 07:39

(Sharecast News) - Bovis Homes Group announced the completion of a 50-50 joint venture with registered social housing provider Riverside for the development of a new community at Stanton Cross, on the edge of Wellingborough, Northamptonshire on Wednesday.The FTSE 250 housebuilder said the "exciting" new development would deliver more than 3,600 new homes together with leisure, retail and office space, new schools, public parks and open spaces.It said the first phase at Stanton Cross was successfully launched in September last year, with "strong demand" for the new homes.Bovis Homes completed 22 units on the site in 2018, delivering a total of around £2m profit.The firm said it had transferred gross assets totalling £102.6m relating to the development, including land and work in progress, into the joint venture.Consideration for those assets had been satisfied with equity of £33.1m from each of the joint venture partners, alongside the existing £36.4m Homes England loan, also transferred from Bovis Homes into the venture.The company said it had realised a net cash benefit from the transaction of £69.5m, which would contribute towards its capital return plan of a total of £180m, or around 134p per share, to shareholders in the three years to 2020.It said it had set out a "clear plan" to optimise its balance sheet in 2017, and with the completion of the joint venture, had now achieved a total of £253.5m from those initiatives, "significantly exceeding" the £180m target.Bovis said it would maintain a "strong focus" on active balance sheet optimisation going forward."We are very pleased to have formed this partnership with Riverside, one of the UK's leading providers of affordable housing and look forward to creating this exciting new community at Stanton Cross with them," said Bovis Homes Group chief executive officer Greg Fitzgerald."We announced the development of our partnership housing division earlier this year, and this is a great example of our land led strategy and working in partnership, in particular with housing associations, on our larger developments."